Now that California is in a severe drought, we are reminded of Loren Eiseley’s essay “The Flow of the River.” He starts out with the observation, “If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.” A simple magical union of hydrogen and oxygen called water has simply allowed all plant and animal life to exist on Planet Earth.

It could be called a miraculous gift, its abundance taken for granted and wasted, using hydraulic mining to wash hillsides for gold in the 1800s, and today polluting it to flush gas and oil from the earth in fracking. Now it is time to stop squandering this liquid treasure that we cannot live without.

That means supporting nature’s plan for capturing and saving water at the source, a system at work for centuries before man appeared on the scene.

California is blessed with numerous forested watersheds in the coastal mountains and Sierra Nevada, and much of the winter rain, snow and hail falls upon the trees in those forests. Once caught, water is naturally filtered and stored in the porous forest soil. Shade of the trees retards the melting of snow, and more water is absorbed.

After the trees and other plants take their share, water is slowly released to springs, rivulets and streams. Soon the rivers are fed by those streams, reaching aquifers, wetlands, human reservoirs and crops downstream. The end of the journey is clearly seen when we turn on our faucets, and there we can wisely control the use.

But in recent decades California has seen the growth of intrusive methods of logging by large industrial timber corporations intent on establishing tree farms for profits far in the future. Their tactic is first to purchase thousands of acres of timberland, then apply for timber harvest plans to the California Board of Forestry and usually qualify for a plan called “even aged management” referring to the even, small sizes of the saplings they intend to plant. Such a license allows them to completely remove all existing trees, known as clearcutting, on multiple 20-acre tracts to clear the way for planting their tree farms

The initial timber harvest is done by heavy industrial soil-compacting vehicles, and the timber removed is sold on the market locally or sent to Asia; the barren soil where trees once stood awaits the planting of one or two species of tiny conifers. Those little trees are protected from competing native growth by toxic herbicides sprayed by helicopter or at ground level.

During that logging, animals that survived have fled, commercially useless plants have been trashed, and nothing resembling the forest complex remains. The loss of fire-resistant mature trees means loss of windbreak and shade, with the sun baking and drying the denuded earth. And so there goes much of our natural store of water, and with it the carbon storage that trees kept out of the atmosphere.

We can encourage any timber harvest done by reasonable selective methods, as sustainable as possible, which could easily supply the state’s lumber needs. But unless clearcutting is prohibited, we will join the sad list of other states and nations allowing deforestation by irresponsible logging practices.

Californians concerned about the future must urge the governor and legislators to stop clearcutting in timber harvest before we see our green and golden state turn forever brown.

Bob Moncrieff, Monte Sereno, is a member of the Forest Protection Committee of the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter. He wrote this for this newspaper.